"Who do you say
that I am?" Jesus asked. Simon Peter answered, "You
are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus
answered, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! ... You are
Peter(petros), and on this rock(petra)
I will build my church..." Jesus then began to speak of
the rough road ahead. And Peter took him aside and rebuked him... "Get
behind me, Satan!" Jesus replied. "You are a stumbling
block..."(Matthew 16:13-23)

May these words of this Peter be like a rock,
not a stumbling block!

"The Thomas in Us All"

Message preached April 3,
2005
Long Green Valley Church of the Brethren
Glen Arm, Maryland USA
based upon

Do you
ever catch yourself associating a character from the Bible with someone you know
who may go by the same name? That is what Iíve done with the disciple Thomas.
The picture I have of this man in my head is a spitting image of my cousin Tom.
I met this relative of mine for the first time, more than forty years ago, when
our family visited his home one summer. As it was past midnight when we arrived,
my sleeping body was tucked in next to his. Our first sight of one another was
face to face in bed early the next morning. Tom, who was four or five years of
age at the time, remembers this more clearly than do I. I guess if I had a
stranger wake up in my bed with me, it would make an impression.

"Are
you my cousin, Peter?" he remembers asking. "Uh-huh," I answered.
And we spent the rest of the visit, as we did every visit thereafter, making a
farm out of their gravel driveway with all of Tomís toy tractors, trucks, and
animals.

Tomís
and my relationship didnít survive the transition out of this toy farm stage.
He battled with his adopted parents and moved out early. We rarely talked after
that. I never got invited into his new life to play with his new toys. The Tom I
see when I think of him is the grown man Iíve met only a few times, with
mussed up hair, dark eyes, stubble on the chin, disheveled clothes, and hands
and face dirty from work. From the few talks weíve had, I see him as a
somewhat angry man, still a bit confused over his family origins and full of
doubt about himself, his family, and his God.- though I may be wrong.

For better
or for worse, this is the Thomas I see when I turn to the Gospel accounts. It
probably is not a very accurate picture of that original Thomas, but it allows
me to enter the scripture in a personal way. Though my cousin Tom and I share
little in common, deep down we are more alike than I might want to admit.

The
biggest hour for the disciple Thomas is found only in Johnís gospel. Let me
retell the episode for you. It all happened after the tomb in which the
crucified Jesus had been buried was discovered empty. According to the fourth
Gospel, Mary Magdalene was the first to see the risen Christ. Peter and the
beloved disciple then verified her discovery of the empty tomb. "I have
seen the Lord," she told all the disciples. Youíd think after hearing
her story that theyíd all run to see for themselves. Of course, men often find
it difficult to believe women, which is sad. With this in mind, itís
interesting to note that in every scripture account the first witnesses of the
resurrection were women.

Instead of
moving with the excitement of Maryís testimony, the disciples closed their
doors, according to John. Talk about a lack of enthusiasm! The greatest news in
the world is afoot and they shut themselves off from it. Isnít that what
usually happens? Fear; thatís the reason given. Fear. Not fear of Jesus and
something wonderful happening. No, fear of "the Jews," fear of what
others might be thinking, or doing. Isnít that usually the reason we close our
doors as well? Weíre afraid of what everybody else might think, or say, or do.
That doesnít really matter, though, for no closed door can keep Jesus out. He
didnít force himself in, you understand, he just came and stood among those
disciples. Thatís also how it often is. Jesus is there all the time. We just
donít have the eyes of faith to perceive his presence.

He came to
the disciples in that closed room. "Peace be with you," he
said. "Shalom!" This risen Christ is the embodiment of Godís
peace. The marks of reconciliation, the print of those nails upon the cross, are
visible to those who would see. Fear changes to Joy. There in the stuffiness of
that closed room Jesus commissioned his disciples to go forth, and gave them the
power to do so. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you," he
said. You are to be my presence, my Fatherís presence, in this world. You will
embody Godís peace. The world will see you. The marks of reconciliation will
be visible in your lives. The Father so loved the world that he sent me, and so
I send you. Shine forth your light.

As Jesus
commissioned them, he empowered them. "Receive the Holy Spirit,"
he said, having breathed on them. The wind of his breath blew open the doors of
that stuffy room just as surely as the wind of God blew through the first
moments of creation, breathing new life into those disciples just like God
breathed the breath of life into that lump of dust he had fashioned and called
"Adam." And the Holy Spirit would be the presence of Jesus to them as
they, and all the disciples after them - to this very day - would embody Godís
forgiveness in this stuffy, dark, and fearful world. What a night that mustíve
been!

Not
everyone experienced his visit, however. Thomas had been absent. Why? Who knows?
No doubt he had his reasons. Perhaps he was the only one caught up in the
excitement of Mary Magdaleneís testimony, and he was out searching for the
risen Christ. Maybe . . . maybe not. Perhaps his own depression and fear had led
him away from the others, drowning his sorrows in some alcoholic brew. Maybe . .
. maybe not. The point is, we are not told why he wasnít there - for in many
ways Thomas represents the doubter in us all, and itís up to us to fill in the
blanks.

As for me,
I see my cousin Tom. It just makes sense that he wouldnít be there, like all
the family get-togethers heís shied away from, at least the few Iíve
attended. Well, I guess Iíve done my share of staying away from family
reunions. The miles between us have always been an easy excuse. Tom didnít
make it to my Dadís funeral back in Ď83. Of course, none of the other
cousins did either, distance and all. No card, no letter, no phone call. None
either way, really. Itís hard to bridge the gap between play toys and real
death. To be honest, I didnít make it to his fatherís funeral this past
February. Kokomo, Indiana is a fair distance, especially when the service is on
the Lordís day and I have responsibilities here.

No, Tom
wouldnít have been there in that stuffy room on that first Easter Sunday.
Maybe I wouldnít have been there either. Name the excuses. There are always
other responsibilities, important things that get in the way. Mind you, the
original disciple Thomas did eventually show up, after all the excitement. When
heheard the news about Jesus appearing to the others, he responded in the most
natural way: doubt. "Unless I see it, I ainít gonna believe it!"

In many
ways Thomas speaks for us all, doesnít he? Oh, we can talk up a storm about
resurrection, but deep down the doubter dwells. And that is as it should be. If
we arenít aware of our own doubt, weíll live it unknowingly. Weíll profess
the right words but weíll live as if they arenít true. Alfred Lord Tennyson
once wrote, "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in
half the creeds." Robert Browning penned, "You call for faith: I show
you doubt, to prove that faith exists. The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I
say, if faith oíercomes doubt."

Doubt is a
part of faith. If there were no doubt, there would be no faith. Even so, a
person canít really live in doubt. Doubt becomes the soil out of which grows
faith. Without faith, the soil becomes as dust - lifeless and blown away by the
wind. I hate to say it, but the picture of my cousin Tom in my head is rather
dusty and lifeless and blown by the wind. And this is Thomas the disciple, as I
see him, the doubter in us all. However, as no doors can shut out the risen
Christ, neither can the dustiness of doubt - though, again, Jesus does not force
himself in.

A week
after dusty, Ďol Thomas confesses his lack of faith in a "no see, no
believe" fashion, Jesus returns. Again the doors are shut. "Peace
be with you," he says to them all. This time Thomas sees him. The risen
Lord faces squarely into the doubt of Thomas. "Put your finger here, and
see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my side." The marks of
reconciliation. Jesus looks him square in the eye. "Do not be faithless,
Thomas, believe." The dustiness and lifelessness in the eyes of this
doubting Thomas, who is every doubter, is blown away by the presence of Jesus.
The scripture doesnít say so, but the breath of the Spirit seems to blow
across the page as we read of this encounter. Itís as if black and white is
changed to color, as Thomas the doubter becomes Thomas the believer.

"My
Lord and My God," he confesses, the high point of Johnís Gospel, one
of the highest confessions in all four gospels of Jesusí divinity. One
commentator describes this episode as if it were a play, with the actors on a
stage. At this moment in the drama it is as if the lights in the auditorium come
on and people in the audience can begin to see themselves and others around
them. With the lights on, Jesus seems to turn and face the audience - us, and
bless us with his attention. "Thomas believed me because he saw me.
Blessed are you who have not seen and yet believe . . ."

"Faith
is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,"
wrote the author of Hebrews (11:1). With Thomas, the
disciple, scripture doesnít say that he touched the wounds of Jesus. In fact,
there is some question as to whether his confession of faith would have been for
real if he had. It wasnít so much the meeting of his conditions for faith
which brought about his confession of faith. Rather, it was the gift of Christís
presence.

Though the
physical presence of the Messiah Jesus is not something we today can see with
these eyes on the front of our faces, we may know that he is alive and with us
by faith, through the breath of his Holy Spirit. That wind still blows.
"Seeing is believing?" ... No, the truth is - "Believing is
seeing." When we believe in the risen Christ, we see that every morning is
Easter morning, every day is resurrection day - whether it happens seven days
later or two thousand years.